WRITTEN ASSIGNMENT II: STEALING HOME
(BOGGS v. BODDICKER)
DUE FRIDAY FEBRUARY 26 @ 8:00 a.m.
PLAINTIFFS’ ATTORNEYS' MATERIALS
Instructions
1. This assignment requires you to think about the evidence necessary to prove or disprove an adverse possession claim in the context of preparing to conduct an informal interview with a potential witness. You should follow the general instructions for written assignments found on pp.14-15 of Information Memo #1 and the specific instructions found below. If the form of work-product does not comply with the instructions, the coordinator of your group will be penalized.
2. As part of the assignment, you should do the readings on memory and perception (S53-66) and witness interviewing (Binder & Price, Legal Interviewing..., pp. 20-52, 124-34 on reserve at the circulation desk library). You need not complete the readings before beginning to draft your work-product, but you should do so early enough in the process so you can incorporate insights from the readings into your work.
3. Attached are copies of three "memoranda" written by a partner at your law firm. One memo gives you instructions regarding your interview with Diana Gray. The other two are file memos summarizing interviews with your clients. On the basis of these memos and the readings, you and your partners should prepare:
(a) Fact Summary: A summary of what you know about the relevant facts in the case (at least 2.5 double-spaced typed pages); and
(b) Issues List: A list or outline of the factual issues on which you would like to question Ms. Gray (at least 1.5 double-spaced pages). You may find it helpful to list general topic areas (e.g., Ms. Gray's relationship to the parties) followed by a series of subheadings (friend? how close? family? etc.)
4. You will work in the teams of two or three students as designated on pages 24 and 25 in Info Memo #2. Your team will submit one joint work-product for this assignment, which is due at the beginning of class on Friday February 26. The work-product will consist of the Fact Summary and the Issues List stapled together in that order. At the top of the first page, in addition to listing your pseudonyms, please indicate that you are “Plaintiffs’ Attorneys.” Begin the Issues List at the top of a new page. You need not have any headings within the assignment more formal than "Fact Summary" and "Issues List.”
5. I suggest that your team plan to meet at least twice. At the first meeting, you can discuss what should be included in each part and decide who will write out the initial draft of each. At the second meeting, you can review initial drafts of each part and discuss how to arrive at the final edited version of the work-product.
6. The name in bold in each team will serve as the coordinator. Unless the group decides otherwise, the coordinator will be responsible for the following aspects of the assignment:
· Organizing team meetings;
· Getting pseudonyms from each team member;
· Collecting work-product from other team members;
· Producing a single seamless document for submission that complies with all instructions;
· Turning in the work-product on time;
· Exchanging the work-product with other teams pursuant to instruction 10 below.
7. Unless the group decides otherwise, the other team members must provide any final contributions to the coordinator by 7:00 p.m. on Wednesday February 24.
8. Please assume that the property in question is located in the (fictional) sub-tropical state of Califlor. Califlor has a 7-year statute of limitations period for actions regarding real property. It has almost no reported cases discussing adverse possession, although its Supreme Court has noted that “We generally apply the elements of adverse possession developed at common law and look to cases in other jurisdictions for guidance as to the scope of these elements.” Smith v. Jones, 246 Clfr. 2d 80, 84 (1975).
9. When thinking about how to do your assignment, keep in mind the purposes of the two documents you are drafting. The Fact Summary will be used by a partner in your firm to get an understanding of the case in order to advise you and the partner handling the case about how to proceed. The Issues List will be used by your boss to see if you will be covering all the necessary topics during the interview and presumably would be used by you yourself as a guide during the interview itself. Bonus points for this assignment will be based largely on how well your work fulfills those purposes.
10. On Friday February 26, after class is over but before 6:00 p.m., the coordinator of each team should e-mail a copy of the assignment to the coordinator for your “opposing counsel”, meaning the team on the other side whose names are parallel to yours in the “Counsel for Defendant” column. Each coordinator will likewise receive the defendants’ submission from their coordinator and then should distribute it to the other team members. The only exception to this is that both Adriana Kiszynski and Daniel Koosed should send the submission to Joe Hughes, and both should receive submissions from him to distribute to their teammates.
M E M O R A N D U M
TO: Associates
FROM: Dennis O'Neal
DATE: Februaery 10, 2010
RE: Boggs v. Boddicker, No. 09-6752: Interview with
Diana Gray
As I explained to you on the phone, I need to be in Los Angeles in late February to take a deposition. Therefore, I would like you to handle the interview I had scheduled on February 26 with Diana Gray, who may be an important witness in the Boggs adverse possession litigation. Some background on the case follows.
In late May, Matthew Boggs and his wife Daniela Martinez came to our office complaining that they had been illegally ejected from their property at 47 Cocopalm Drive in Coconut Village. My memo to file summarizing my initial interview with them is attached. Based on that interview, we drafted a complaint alleging that William Boddicker was in possession of property belonging to Boggs.
The complaint, dated and filed on June 26, 2009 and served on June 27, states that in July, 2000, Boggs took possession of the property adversely and that he has held it since that date. It acknowledges that Boddicker has record title to the property, but goes on to allege that:
1) Boggs has cultivated the property and improved the buildings on it since July, 2000;
2) The property constituted Boggs's place of business furniture-making) as well as his residence and that Boggs and Martinez had published advertisements that gave the address and phone number of the property;
3) Boggs and Martinez were improperly ejected from the property through the use of unreasonable force on May 17, 2009;
4) Boggs had adversely possessed the property by that date; and
5) Boggs is entitled to title to the property and damages for unnecessary use of force in ejecting him from the property.
Boddicker's attorneys, Gotobarz & Cruz, filed an answer on July 14, 2009. In the answer, they denied the allegations in the complaint, stated that Boddicker had record title to both 47 and 49 Cocopalm Drive, and raised the following affirmative defenses:
1) Boggs's initial residence on the property was no earlier than June, 2002;
2) Boggs's possession of the property was not continuous--that he had not been in possession of the property at least during the summer of 2004, and during most of the period between 2006 and 2009;
3) Boggs's possession of the property was not open and notorious;
4) Boggs's possession of the property was not exclusive--Boddicker had committed acts that demonstrated his possession of the property such as painting and repairing the fence around both 47 and 49 Cocopalm Drive;
5) Boggs had acknowledged that Boddicker was the owner of the property in June, 2006, and had promised to leave and not to return; and
6) Boggs and Martinez voluntarily left the 47 Cocopalm property in May, 2009, when asked to do so by Boddicker.
After the answer was filed, I again interviewed Boggs and Martinez. I have attached a copy of the file memo summarizing this interview.
I spoke with Ms. Gray last week when I set up the interview. She gave me the following information: She is a 32-year old schoolteacher teaching English in a local Junior High School. She has lived at 48 Cocopalm Drive in Coconut Village for almost 20 years. She currently lives alone but for a long time shared the house with her father, who until his death from a heart attack in 2006, worked as a doctor (eyes, ears, nose and throat) at St. Francis hospital and had an office in Coconut Village.
Ms. Gray seems bright and talkative, although a little nervous about speaking with lawyers. I explained to her what the case is about, so you should be able to begin questioning without too much explanation. The attached materials and your own knowledge of adverse possession law should be sufficient to enable you to conduct the interview.
Before you begin the interview, put together a brief list of issues on which you intend to question Ms. Gray and run it by me for approval. In addition, Sally Ryan wants to get a quick handle on the case; she has done an adverse possession case before and her insights might be helpful. Could you please draft a summary of what we know about the facts (based on these materials) for her to read. Thanks.
M E M O R A N D U M
TO: FILE (Boggs Adverse Possession)
FROM: Dennis O'Neal
DATE: May 29, 2009
RE: Interview with Matthew Boggs/Daniela Martinez
(5/28/07)
Matthew Boggs and his wife, Daniela Martinez, came to our office seeking help in what seems to be an adverse possession matter regarding a property in Coconut Village. I spoke with them for several hours and have pieced together the following information from the somewhat confused story they gave me.
Boggs is 33 years old. Martinez, who is a citizen of this country, but was originally from El Salvador, is 31. They make their living growing vegetables, selling vegetarian "pies" to local restaurants, and making and selling furniture. Boggs grew up in Coconut Village and has a business degree from Califlor State University (1998). He attended law school at Califlor State for one year and dropped out.
Martinez, who left El Salvador for England in 2001, spent three years working with a famous British furniture designer. She met Boggs in London during the summer of 2004 and they fell in love. She returned with him to the U.S. at the end of that summer. They were married in 2006 and she became a U.S. citizen in 2008. She says she avoided immigration and naturalization problems with the INS because of her training and skill as a furniture-maker.
The property at issue is 47 Cocopalm Drive in Coconut Village (see attached map). We will have to get a legal description for it. It is bordered on the front and one side by a six-foot high wooden fence and in the back by a chain link fence installed and maintained by the city of Coconut Village. There is no man-made fence or wall on the fourth side of the lot (next to #49) but Boggs says there is heavt foliage there and you can’t see from one lot into the other.
The cottage on the lot contains a relatively large living and dining area with a small kitchenette off to one side, one full bathroom, and two small bedrooms, one of which the couple uses as a workroom and office.
The shed behind the cottage contains the woodworking equipment the couple uses for furniture building. In the cultivated sections they grow corn, tomatoes and beans, which they use in the pies they make (which apparently are pastries filled with a kind of spiced succotash). They also purchase vegetables for the pies.
BEGINNING OF POSSESSION
In the summer of 2000, Boggs returned to Coconut Village from Tallamento, where the state university is located. He lived with his parents at first, looking for a place of his own. He claims he scouted Coconut Village and nearby towns for abandoned property "to see if adverse possession could really work." He found a battered cottage at 47 Cocopalm, determined nobody was looking after it, and moved on to the property in late July.
During the summer and fall of 2000, Boggs apparently spent a great deal of time fixing up the house. He bought and installed a new plumbing system, and repaired the roof, which apparently had been smashed up by a tree. He does not have receipts for the materials he purchased, but claims that the fixtures he bought clearly would indicate that they were purchased about that time. He left the outside of the cottage unpainted because he didn't "want people snooping around."
During the same period, he cleared off much of the overgrown yard, leaving a border strip of trees and bushes around the perimeter. He began growing corn, beans and tomatoes. He lived in his van (a 1988 Dodge van that still runs today with 195,000 miles on it!!) until the cottage was livable. He got utility and phone service under his own name as well. Boggs thinks he kept records of some of these payments, but that he left them behind in the office in the cottage when they had to leave so quickly (see below).
During the first years he lived at 47 Cocopalm, Boggs scraped to make ends meet. He did odd jobs, worked part-time making and repairing furniture, and lived off his own vegetables. He developed a “crazy good” recipe for vegetable pot pies in 2000, and Ellie Brown(671-623-9898), a friend who owns a restaurant (24 Carrots) in the Village, began buying the pies. He had very little furniture in those days and was often away from home overnight on delivery errands, living in his van. He scraped together enough money to go to England in the summer of 2002, and has taken a trip there every summer since “to get away from the horrible summer humidity.”